The Arab Collective Defense Council meeting in Cairo . General al-Shazliy and Prince Hamad Bin `Isa,
Crown Prince of Bahrayn, Defense Minister of Bahrayn.
 

 "We stood little chance of truly mobilizing Arab resources for collective action against Israeli expansionism until the burdens were shared more equitably" Lt. Gen. al-Shazliy

The October War saw the widest Arab cooperation against the common enemy since 1948. The three front-line states Egypt, Syria, Jordan of course collaborated. (The Jordanian front itself remained calm, but Jordan reinforced the Syrian front with one armored brigade on October 13, one week after the outbreak of war, and another armored brigade a week later. And no fewer than eight non-front-line Arab states also sent forces to the battle. The contributions were not always without problems, as we shall see. There are lessons we must learn. But it showed what could be done. The planning for this, too, had begun long before the war.

June 30, 1971: In a ceremony at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, I took the oath as Assistant Secretary General of the Arab League for Defense (ASGALD). As such, I became coordinator of the Chiefs of Staff in all Arab countries.

First, the collective help which the front-line states asked of their Arab brothers at the Arab Collective Defense Council meetings was always financial, nothing more.

Second, the Arab Collective Defense Council, having heard trenchant and enthusiastic speeches in favor of mutual aid, invariably passed powerful resolutions.

But third, these were never regarded as binding, so they were almost never acted upon. Having made some stirring decisions, the delegates of virtually every state, especially those supposed to give the aid, would plead that final approval lay with their highest authorities back home. In practice that approval never materialized. The reality remained that what little financial support was forthcoming had to be drummed up by the front-line heads of state or their foreign ministers touring the Arab world with begging bowls. What they got depended on no more than their own bargaining ability and the mood of the other ruler.

Finally, I concluded that the most successful, which is to say productive, meetings of the Arab Collective Defense Council, indeed any Arab League committee, were those attended by heads of state. The fact is that whether Arab states call themselves monarchies, republics or sheikhdoms, real power resides in the hands of the head of state.

My next step was to ask: if there is no truly collective Arab defense program, what efforts do Arab states individually make? Taking United Nations' 1970 figures, I studied defense expenditure against national income throughout the Arab world and compared the figures with each other and with those for Israel. The comparisons shocked me.

The Arab world, with a population of 110 million, generated a gross national product of $26 billion. Israel, with a population of three million, had a gross national product of $3.6 billion. Averaged across the Arab world, per capita annual income was $236; in Israel it was $1,300. Facing that discrepancy, the Arabs could surely afford no waste. They had little choice, as I saw it, but to coordinate their efforts. The reality revealed by their defense budgets was vastly different. Those Arab states, no matter how poor, which happened to border Israel were devoting a far higher proportion of their gross national product to defense than were other far richer Arab countries who had the good fortune to find themselves far from the front. Egypt, its per capita income a mere $203 a year, was pouring 21.1 percent of its gross national product into defense, while vastly richer Arabs gave less than three percent.

It seemed to me that we stood little chance of truly mobilizing Arab resources for collective action against Israeli expansionism until the burdens were shared more equitably. I drafted a plan whereby, the richer the country, the more it would devote to Arab defense. The percentage of gross national product each country allotted to defense would vary according to its annual per capita income: 10 percent of the gross national product for those countries with per capita incomes lower than $200  a year; 15 percent for those with incomes up to $500; 20 percent for those with incomes of $500-$1,000; 25 percent for those with incomes of $1,000-$2,000; and 30 percent for those over $2,000. An Arab defense fund should be set up to handle the Arab world's total defense allocations (contributed on my suggested basis). The global sum should be distributed among members, with at least half going to the front-line states. Any country, of course, would then be free to allocate more from its own budget for defense if it wished.
 
 

An utopian dream. When I floated even the broad outline of the project unofficially round the Arab League, I found it so unacceptable that it would have been inadvisable even to broach it officially. At my first meeting with the other Arab Chiefs of Staff, shortly after taking up my job, I nevertheless insisted upon going, figure by figure, through the tables of income versus defense expenditure and calling their attention to the disparities, though regretfully, without suggesting any plan to remove them.

If a radical solution to the problem of Arab military cooperation was thus impossible, my task, it seemed to me, remained the same. What other ways could be found to mobilize Arab forces for the coming battle?

NEXT:  EPISODE NINETEEN  
THE OCTOBER ARMS DEAL
 
 
 

There are three ways in which a civil leadership causes the military trouble.  When a civil leadership unaware of the facts tells its armies to advance when it should not, or tells its armies to retreat when it should not, this is called tying up the armies.  When the civil leadership is ignorant of military affairs but shares equally in the government of the armies, the soldiers get confused.  When the civil leadership is ignorant of military maneuvers but shares equally in the command of the armies, the soldiers hesitate.  Once the armies are confused and hesitant, trouble comes from competitors.  This is called taking away victory by deranging the military. (Sun Tzu chinese warrior-philosopher)